CJ Kayfus Hits Homer in AAA Debut as Guardians Affiliates go 2-2 Wednesday

Cleveland Guardians minor league recap for Thursday, May 1st, 2025

Columbus Clippers 7, St. Paul Saints 8 (F/11)

Box Score · Clippers fall to 13-14

CJ Kayfus has made quite the first impression for the International League Wednesday! The 23-year-old out of Miami University went 2-4 in his AAA debut, while going yard off of former Guard Tyler Beede.

The other hit he had on the day also nearly left the yard, but he was held to a very long single that hit the top of Columbus’ right field wall. It seems like no matter where CJ is in the minors, he just rakes.

Three other hitters had multi-hit days for the Clips as well — Petey Halpin, Yordys Valdes and Will Brennan, who is trying to shake off a few games’ skid after his torrent start to the season.

Slade Cecconi has also started rehab Wednesday, being a part of a wide-ranging injury report for the Guardians’ system that was announced earlier on in the day. He went 3.1 innings for 2 earned runs on a hit and a walk (For clarification: Tanner Burns inherited the two runners that Cecconi allowed, and he gave up both of them. The ER were ultimately charged to Cecconi).

Nic Enright was another part of that injury report, coming off the IL and pitching 2 solid innings for Columbus Wednesday as well. He did give up a run in the 10th, but let’s be honest — it really isn’t entirely on Enright, as he had to inherit a runner. Everything else he showed was great. All he gave up was that run-scoring single and a walk in the previous inning, and he ended up fanning 2 batters.

(An update on the other rehabbing Guards prospects will be given at the end of this recap)

It was a very close game, and it would’ve been amazing to see the Clips win late in the game. But alas, after sharing blows in extras, the Saints stood on top after 11 innings.

Akron RubberDucks 6, Altoona Curve 0

Box Score · RubberDucks improve to 15-8

The Ducks are just continuing to dominate the Eastern League.

Kahlil Watson went yard for his second bomb of the year, as Cooper Ingle, Dayan Frias, Justin Boyd and Alex Mooney all doubled.

Travis Bazzana went 1-5, driving in a run and coming up unlucky on a scorched liner right to Mitch Jebb.

Aaron Davenport held down the fort (no rhyme intended) for the RubberDucks, throwing 6 shutout innings, allowing a hit, 3 walks, and K’ing 5 batters.

There was limited traffic on the basepaths all day, really. Davis Sharpe and Zane Morehouse pitched the final 3 innings, allowing just 3 runners to get on base.

Lake County Captains 2, Lansing Lugnuts 5

Box Score · Captains fall to 13-10

Although the Caps lost this one, there seems to be an absolute constant in the team’s offense, and that is Alfonsin Rosario. There has only been two games where Rosario hasn’t recorded a hit, and tonight isn’t one of them. He doubled one of the team’s only two runs, to extend his new hitting streak to 4 games. (Here’s a shameless plug to my write-up on his performance early this season if you haven’t read that yet)

Another guy with an ongoing hit streak, Jose Devers, also extended his to 10 games with a single in the 7th that he ended up scoring on.

Jackson Humphries had a rough day Wednesday, giving up all 5 Lugnut runs in 3.1 innings of work. The woes started with a clobbered homer in the 2nd by Clark Elliott. Then came some bad BABIP luck, a wild pitch, and a two run single in the 3rd. The last two runs were charged to Humphries, who had those runners on the basepaths as Jack Jasiak came in to try and clean things up.

Josh Harlow, however did have 2 very clean innings of work, so if there’s a silver lining to be drawn from Lake County’s pitching performance, that is it.

Lynchburg Hillcats 7, Charleston RiverDogs 4

Box Score · Hillcats improve to 14-9

The Hillcats scored 7 runs on 3 hits. How in the world does this happen, you might ask? Well, it’s actually quite simple. Let’s run it down.

Jose Pirela started the scoring in the 2nd with an RBI double to score Ryan Cesarini, who walked on board and stole 2nd to get in scoring position. 1 run.

In the 4th, Jayden Voelker walks Bennett Thompson, throws a ball in the dirt that allows him to get to 2nd, throws another ball in the dirt to strike out Jeffrey Mercedes, prompting catcher JD Gonzalez to throw to first, allowing Thompson to get to 3rd, and for the hat trick, Voelker throws yet another ball in the dirt that got away from Gonzalez to score Thompson. One unnecessarily long run-on sentence later, we are at 2 runs.

In the 6th, Welbyn Francisca reaches on an error committed by first baseman Larry Martinez, Luis Merejo gets hit by a pitch, and a walk is issued to (guess who) Bennett Thompson. Logically, the next course of action down this chaotic line of baseball is just more havoc being caused on the basepaths, right? Wrong. Jeffrey Mercedes hits a grand slam just because he can, and makes this day for the Hillcats offense even more of an anomaly. 6 runs.

Lastly, Luis Merejo hits a normal solo homer in the 7th to put the Cats up even more. What an absolutely boring and uneventful way to put your team up 7 runs, am I right? (we still love you though, Luis)

Aside from the devil magic that was being conjured by the Hillcats offense, their pitching staff did quite well in holding the lead. 2024 draft pick Rafe Schlesinger struck out 5 batters in 5 innings of 1-run baseball, allowing just 4 baserunners.

Austin Aldeano gave up the other 3 runs from a 3-run bomb hit by Jack Lines. But everything else from there on out was smooth sailing for Sean Matson, who earned the save.

As I promised, here is the full rundown of the injury report for Guards prospects given Wednesday.

• Reliever Franco Aleman is currently throwing at the Arizona complex and is soon to start pitching in the minors again (whether he’s rehabbing in lower levels or going straight to Columbus is still unknown).
• Chase DeLauter, the outfielder that everybody has been holding their breath for over the last couple months, has started baseball activities again and is progressing very well through his rehab. He will begin playing in games sometime in the next several weeks.
• I know Daniel Espino hasn’t even thrown a pitch for Columbus in his career yet, but I figured it’d fit to put him here, as he’d likely get a fast track right to AAA. But yes, he has also started throwing bullpens, and will progress to live ABs once this phase is complete.
• George Valera is on-course with his rehab as well, being able to get back into game activity sometime around mid-May.
• Erik Sabrowski, recovering from his elbow joint injection, has been rehabbing as well. Although he experienced some lingering soreness earlier in the week, he is set to return to throwing off the mound next week.
• Last but not least, Andrew Walters experienced some elbow inflammation after an appearance a couple weeks ago. However, he is back to throwing and will return to game activity sometime within the next 2 weeks if all goes well.